Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

I think VRUS's first generation nuke RG7128 unlike the latest-generation HCV nukes is also not potent enough.

I doubt that any HCV nucleoside (as opposed to a monophosphate nucletide) could be potent enough to be a bona fide contributor in an all-oral cocktail. Performing the first phosphorylation step in vivo is too inefficient and too variable from patient to patient to allow the active triphosphate metabolite to reach a therapeutic concentration in all patients without causing unacceptable toxicity from the parent drug.

In other words, I don’t think RG7128 per se lacks potency, but rather that all first-generation nukes lack potency because they are nucleosides. That’s why I opined in #msg-61760351 that the first-generation HCV nukes and the second-generation HCV nukes are effectively two different classes of drugs.